Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Most black carbon over Arctic is from South Asia per James Hansen NASA GISS peer reviewed study, 2005. Great news for those who care about the Arctic, Greenland, or Hawaii. Bad news: Solution doesn't cost much money or require global treaty. Poor and needy could get back billions of tax dollars starved from them for decades in favor of CO2 scare

[12]Bowling and Shaw [1992]
used thermodynamical argument to indicate that in order for polluted
air to reach the Arctic via isentropic flow, low-level haze probably
needs to originate from smoke stack injections into dry air;
higher-level haze (above 3 km) would need to come from an extremely dry
and/or high altitude source, such as a desert. This analysis might be
consistent with a mixed dust-pollutionsource region such as the Asian
Steppes. Hot dry biomass burning conditions might also satisfy the
thermodynamic requirements..

[13] We
use our global model to examine the degree to which the Arctic is
impacted by the more distant south Asian and low-latitude biomass
regions which have the largest emissions, compared with the previously
studied “Arctic haze” source regions of Europe, Russia and North
America....

[39] Our
global model indicates that most of the black carbon in the present-day
Arctic comes from industrial and biofuel sources in south Asia and from
biomass burning. Such BC arrives in the Arctic at higher altitudes
throughout the year, in contrast with the surface-level springtime haze
that is often the focus of Arctic haze studies. We do not imply that
most of the BC in these distant regions is transported to the Arctic. On
the contrary, according to our model most of south Asian BC remains
south of 60°N. However enough of it makes its way north to become the
major contributor to Arctic BC, so that about 20–40% of Arctic BC
optical thickness comes from south Asia. This region has the largest
industrial BC emission, about 21% of the global emission. It contributes
about 20% to the lower troposphere winter-spring transport to the
Arctic, or Arctic haze, and to surface deposition. Because the south
Asian BC tends to travel at higher altitudes, it contributes a higher
percentage to optical thickness and radiative forcing (20–40%)....

..

[40] Again, most of these [BC] biomass emissions remain at low latitudes
and contribute to the BC load there. However, enough of the BC is lofted
to higher altitudes, according to the model, to make significant
contributions to the Arctic burden. About 60% of the global BC is from
southern biomass burning. In the Arctic it contributes substantially to
optical thickness and radiative forcing (10–20%)....

[47]Despite
the possibility that the model exaggerates long-range transport of
aerosols, our results suggest that these distant source regions are
probably significant contributors to Arctic BC abundance. The existence
of substantial contribution from distant sources is supported by
observations such as large BC amount at midlevels of the troposphere, so
there is evidence supporting a prominent role for southeast Asian
sources in the Arctic. The timing and location of Arctic warming and sea
ice loss in the late 20th century is consistent with south Asian
sources. According to Baumgardner et al. [2004],
BC concentrations in the UT/LS over the Arctic seem to have doubled
between 1980 and 1995 (although they also indicate that the early data
are highly uncertain). BC emissions from developed countries have
declined and aircraft are apparently not to blame.However, during this
time BC emissions from China and India have nearly doubled [Novakov et al., 2003]. Also, the model indicates that most of the concentrations in this region of the UT/LS are from south Asia.
.

[48] According to the 2002 AMAP Assessment [MacDonald et al., 2003],
the past three decades show significant decreases in sea ice thickness
and extent. This recent decrease is greatest in spring and fall and
occurs in the western Arctic (western North America and Siberia).These
observations defy recent modeling efforts, which show the largest impact
of increased CO2 on the Arctic winter rather than summer. [MacDonald et al., 2003]. The pattern of sea ice loss is believed to be linked to the phase of the AO [MacDonald et al., 2003].
However it is interesting that these decades correspond to the
increases in BC from south Asia, and that this BC is transported over
the Pacific and into the western Arctic, during summer as well as
spring.Prior to this, sea ice also decreased during the 1930s–1940s.
However this occurred during winter in the eastern part of the Arctic.
Again it is interesting to note that during this earlier period,
pollution from coal burning in the United States, Europe and Russia [Novakov et al., 2003]
would have been transported to the Arctic during winter-spring, and the
Eurasian sources would deposit heavily in the eastern Arctic (see Figure 10)."...

"It seems to have gone virtually unnoticed, but the world leaders at the weekend's G8 summit look as if they have taken the biggest step in years in tackling climate change.And it's quite apart from anything to do with carbon dioxide..The summit's final communiqué, the Camp David Declaration, supports “comprehensive actions” to reduce “short-lived climate pollutants”. These substances –including black carbon (soot), methane, ground-level ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons – are responsible for about half of global warming. Straightforward measures to address them, a report by the United Nations Environment Programme concluded last year, would delay dangerous climate change by more than three decades, buying crucial time for the much more difficult process of slashing carbon dioxide emissions.
. More important still, the measures would save some 2.4 million lives a year, mainly by cutting the inhalation of soot, chiefly emitted by vehicle diesel engines and by the inefficient wood and dung burning cookstoves
used by most of the world's poorest people – and increase grain
harvests, at present hit by pollution, by 52 million tons a year..While the international climate negotiations drag on, these pollutants can be reduced through existing national laws and regulations, using technologies that are already available. And many climate sceptics agree on the importance of doing so: Senator James Inhofe, who pioneered Republican rejection of action to curb carbon dioxide, supports it on black carbon, while Canada – which caused controversy this winter by quitting the Kyoto Protocol – has been in the forefront of countries urging an assault on such the short-lived agents of climate change.. The G8's endorsementof action at the weekend is a triumph for the small Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD), which has been campaigning for action on the pollutants while most climate scientists and green pressure groups have ignored them.
In just a few short years it has brought the issue from invisibility
to the agendas of the world's most powerful leaders. In February six
governments – including the US, Canada and Mexico – launched a five
year programme to tackle them, and the rest of the G8 has now signed up to it. And it commissioned the World Bank to produce a report on how it can integrate ways of reducing them into its activities.. The
leaders also reaffirmed their commitments to limiting the increase in
the world's temperature to less than two degrees centigrade over
pre-industrial levels and phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels – and
welcomed December's Durban climate summit as “a significant
breakthrough” towards reaching international agreements on cutting
carbon dioxide by 2015.. It will remain importantto
continue this international effort. But as Durwood Zaelke, the IGSD
president puts it “the solution-orientated approach” of the programme to address the short-lived pollutants can “show the world it is possible to start meeting the climate challenge.”"